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petrichoravellichor · 4 years

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Can I please have a (platonic) Balthazar and Castiel in the prompt “-some dude with a megaphone is spewing homophopic crap outside the cafeteria and we’re both protesting him because the college is adamnant about his freedom of speech rights, make out with me to piss him off?”

Can I Get an Amen

Relationship: Balthazar & Cas (platonic)

Other Characters: Sam Winchester, Naomi (unnamed, but it’s her)

Rating: T

Tags: Alternate Universe - College/University, Balthazar POV, Bi-/Pansexual Balthazar, Slightly Hippie!Cas (like, a mixture of Endverse!Cas + Crazy!Cas), Bees, Homophobic Language (which gets shut the fuck down), Very Exaggerated Make-Out Session Between Friends (to piss off a homophobe, so it’s for a good cause)

(Ao3)

*****

When Sam’s alarm went off at seven a.m., Balthazar’s first thought upon jarring awake was that he was going to throw the bloody phone out the window. (He didn’t, because doing so would have required him to get up, but it was a near thing.) Balthazar had no idea what sort of cosmic fuck-up he’d committed in a previous life to get landed with a roommate for whom going for an early morning run beat out having a lie-in, but as he grumbled under his breath while Sam rose and dressed, he felt fairly certain that fate was having a laugh at his expense.

Sam, the bastard, found this all very amusing.

“You know,” Sam said mildly as he sat on the edge of his bed and did up his shoelaces, seemingly impervious to the death-glare Balthazar was giving him, “it wouldn’t kill you to get up a few hours before your first class. You don’t even have to exercise: you could just, like, read or get some extra studying in or something.”

Balthazar snorted. “I could, yes, but why on earth would I,” he said, stretching luxuriously beneath his sheets, “when I could just as easily stay in bed and dream of having a ménage à-whatever-French-for-twelve is?”

“Okay, one, it’s douze, and two, ew. Also, don’t even pretend like you could keep up with that many women.”

“Mm, bold of you to assume they were all women.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, standing, “I’m gonna go. Have fun dreaming about naked people.”

He left, and Balthazar promptly buried his head under his pillow, determined to fall back asleep. He gave up after half an hour of angry tossing and turning, rising in a huff and stomping over to his dresser. If he was doomed to be awake this early, then he might as well go down to the quad and fetch himself something caffeinated to drink.

Ten minutes later, he was trudging down the steps outside the dorm building and mulling over various forms of revenge—his current favorite consisted of tossing out one of Sam’s beloved running shoes, then watching with glee as Sam searched for it in vain—when he heard a voice from the lawn to his left:

“You’re up early.”

Balthazar turned and spotted his friend Cas, who was currently dressed in a loose-fitting shirt and sweats; he was barefoot, balancing on one leg with the other tucked up under him, palms pressed together, and was peering at Balthazar with a mixture of surprise and amusement. “I didn’t know you even existed before noon.”

Balthazar sighed. “Yes, well, annoying roommates with early alarms are annoying.”

“Ah.” Cas shifted into a different pose, placing both feet flat on the grass and raising his arms above his head. “And here I thought I’d finally convinced you to try yoga with me.”

“Cassie, the day I willingly twist myself into a pretzel while both clothed and sober is the day I forgive you for making me sit through three hours of that god-awful Titanic movie.”

“You’re just mad because you hate Celine Dion.”

“It’s not her I hate, it’s that bloody song! And furthermore,” Balthazar added, pointedly ignoring Cas’s snicker, “our dear Rose’s heart wouldn’t have had to go on if she’d just done a better job of making room for Jack on that piece of fucking debris.”

“It was a door.”

“It was a travesty, is what it was, and I’ll thank you to quit bringing it up. Now then,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the quad, “I’m going for a latte. Care to join me? Or have you still got to do your downward doggy-style or what have you?”

Cas rolled his eyes and reached for his sandals. “It’s downward dog, and no, I’m done.”

“Brilliant, you’re buying.”

They headed toward the quad, Cas talking animatedly about some new Save the Bees project he and a few others in the Environmental Club were hoping to kick off soon. Balthazar, who was busy trying to decide if he wanted a muffin or a scone with his latte, was only half listening, a decision he regretted when he heard Cas say, with a hint of smugness, “I knew I could count on you,” and, after a quick mental replay, realized that he’d just agreed to attend an all-day event that coming weekend. Fuck. He opened his mouth to give an excuse when a commotion ahead caught his attention.

A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the quad; as Balthazar and Cas neared, Balthazar saw that at its center was a middle-aged brunette woman dressed in formal clothing who was speaking into a megaphone:

“…TIME HAS COME TO RENOUNCE YOUR SINFUL LIFESTYLE AND REMEMBER THAT ONLY THROUGH GOD’S GRACE CAN YOU ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS US THAT MAN SHALL NOT LIE WITH MEN AS HE DOES WITH WOMEN, THAT IT IS AN AB—”

“—SOLUTELY DELIGHTFUL WAY TO SPEND A FRIDAY NIGHT!” interjected Balthazar, causing the woman to pause and several heads to turn in their direction.

The woman lowered her megaphone. She looked from Balthazar to Cas and back again. “I am here to spread the Lord’s teachings to you and others like you, those who have been led astray by immoral temptations of the flesh. You should thank me.”

Balthazar let out a bitter laugh. “Thank you? What on earth for?”

The woman frowned. “I told you, I’m here to spread the Lord’s teachings—”

Balthazar cut her off. “You did, twice. Good for you.” He crossed his arms. “But, you see, we’re a litter-free campus, so it’d be lovely if you took your rubbish elsewhere.”

Several of the surrounding students cheered. The woman glanced around, seemingly unsure. “I have a permit. I’m allowed to be here.”

“We’re students,” said Cas. “We pay money to be here.” Even more people cheered. “And incidentally, the line you’re referring to, Leviticus 18:22, condemns pedophilia, not homosexuality.”

Balthazar turned to Cas. “What, really?”

“Yes. The original wording translates to ‘man shall not lie with young boys’.” Cas regarded the woman coolly. “Also, since you claim to concern yourself with the word of God, I’d check the tag on that suit. Leviticus 19:19 prohibits wearing garments that mix linen and wool.”

The woman pressed her lips together in a thin line. “I will not be lectured on my faith by a young man who has clearly lost his way.”

“I’m not lecturing you,” responded Cas. “I’m simply telling you what the Bible says.”

“You mock me.”

“You do that to yourself.”

The woman scowled, eyes boring into Cas. “There are places that can help you, programs that can teach you to make more Godly choices.”

“You’re referring to so-called conversion therapy,” said Cas, and though he was still speaking calmly, there was an edge to his voice that Balthazar rarely heard, “a practice that has been discredited by every leading expert on human sexuality for over two decades.”

“Despite what you think, it can be effective if you’re willing, if you want to be fixed—”

“We’re not broken,” said Cas. “Your beliefs are.”

“Now wait just a minute—”

“Oh, piss off!” snapped Balthazar. Cas might have had the patience to deal with this sort of thing uncaffeinated, but he most certainly did not. “Aren’t there more important things you could spend your energy bitching about? Take bees, for example: they’re dropping dead at an alarming rate, which could have frankly catastrophic effects on our food supply, but no, you’re right, let’s get all dressed up and tell gay people they’re going to hell because they have the audacity to be themselves, that’s clearly the bigger priority.”

Cas gave him a surprised smile. “You were listening about the bees.”

“Of course I was listening, I’m a wonderful friend like that. Speaking of,” said Balthazar, turning to Cas with a raised eyebrow, “fancy a friendly snog to piss off this hag?”

Cas thought a moment, then shrugged. “Why not?”

“That’s the spirit,” said Balthazar bracingly, grabbing a fistful of Cas’s shirt and pulling him in for a kiss.

There was no real heat to it—at the end of the day, Balthazar knew Cas was about as romantically interested in him as he was in Cas; that is to say, not at all—but in for a penny, in for a pound. Balthazar closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around Cas’s shoulders, letting out an exaggerated moan; he could feel Cas practically shaking with suppressed laughter and gave him a very subtle pinch. Cas let out a muffled snort before gasping, “Oh, Balthazar!” in mock passion and pressing their lips more firmly together; he even groaned a bit, which at which point it was Balthazar’s turn to bite back a chuckle.

Thankfully, their tactic worked: the students around them erupted into applause, and scarcely five seconds had passed before the woman let out an affronted huff and stormed off. Once the sound of her heels had sufficiently faded, Balthazar cracked an eye open and, with the visual confirmation that she was gone, gave Cas a tap on the shoulder, stepping back with a grin. “Well, that went swimmingly, wouldn’t you say?”

Cas looked off in the direction the woman had gone. “It did seem to have the desired effect, although,” he added, lips twitching in a poorly concealed smirk as he reached into his pocket and produced a tube of organic lip balm, “you probably need this more than I do.”

Balthazar rolled his eyes. “Oh, we’re giving post-snogging critiques, are we? Here, then.” He took the lip balm and, in exchange, held out a small tin of mints. “You absolutely need this more than I do.”

Cas snorted, accepting the mints and making a show of popping one into his mouth; Balthazar, for his part, applied a liberal amount of lip balm. “Right, then,” he said, smacking his lips together and pocketing the tube, “coffee?”

#balthazar #cas & balthazar #balthazar & cas #supernatural #spn #fanfiction #my writing #can i get an amen #cw: homophobic language #cw: homophobia

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painted-starlight · 5 years

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It's an interesting contrast how the recent princesses needed to be of royal origins while the first ever black princess needed to be poor. It's a tendedcy where some characters just need to get a short end somewhere while other favorables don't. Also I do kind of think Gothel would posses every trait of a strong competent heroine but we live in a bizarre world were a status like that is shifted on a meakly passive female characters. Also shows recently p.often exploit the anti-parentalism, they

(Continued)

need not be one for children to readily pin against their parents. Barbie Gothel was someone of a mentor I guess. And mother figures are never considered to be worthy in stories, any other mom was bland at best, or murdered for overdone selfless reasons. Also there was a part in Beauty and the beast where there's beautiful sweet Belle swings around in town wanting more in life whilethere is that brief scene of an exhausted pathetic mother carrying theirchildren. Don'tbe mom kids they kinda suck. and unattractive.

Warning: Long Post, Anti-T//angled, Anti-Frozen, Talking about sexism and racism in Disney Princess Movies

White Disney Princess Movie’s Don’t Have to Be Good. They Just Have to Be There

The discrepancy between the first black disney princess and the rest of the white princesses is that a lot of princesses of color tend to be representations of their culture, while white princesses often are not. Tiana’s movie tries to encompass the black experience, but it has a lot of problems mostly because of white filmmakers trying to not hold their white audiences accountable (I severely dislike Lottie and wish they focused on Tiana only instead of letting Lottie steal the show).

The next time we get a black disney princess might not be for a very, very long time. But Elsa and Anna and R//apunzel get to have spinoffs, their settings get to be vague, because they are allowed chance after chance to be good. Well, next time.

It wasn’t good the first time? Your white princess movie sucked mighty ass? Well, we’ll just give them a spinoff no one wanted. And a sequel to fix the problems of the first movie.

The Bar is Very Low For White Princesses

White Princesses and their movies t are often boring and uninteresting. The bar for their movies is actually very low. Movies like Frozen and T//angled don’t even have to be good. They just have to be there. They can be barely finished with the weakest writing possible. There to be projected upon, make cute toys, and to fill up space for princess merchandise. But they have to be there so white disney customers can feel superior for having even more princesses that look like them.

But princesses of color, despite being more compelling characters who interact with their culture, are exoticised, fetishized or rely on outdated stereotypes to fill in the gaps.

A majority of these movies are mostly made by white filmmakers. If Tiana’s movie was handled by a majority black staff, the movie would definitely be a much better representation of the black community.

However, Disney only allows movies through the perspective of white people looking in on a culture, and they often impose a lot of stereotypes in the process because of their unwillingness to give nonwhite staff a chance.

Mother Gothel’s Role in T//angled

As for Mother Gothel, her role in T*angled personally always came across as a shallow character, though that is my own interpretation and more a frustration with the filmmakers lack of introspection on her character’s real motivations. Why does she want to stay young? How is it beneficial for her? What makes youth so important that she resorts to abusing a child?

I haven’t seen Barbie’s Rapunzel other than a few previews (but knowing how much Disney liked to lifted from it’s aesthetic I definitely know they wanted in some way to compete with it) but maybe they did the main villain better? Maybe I should check it out.

Important answers about Mother Gothel cannot be guessed by her behavior like other disney villains and is unfortunately left up in the air. I can speculate Scar’s, Maleficent’s, and Ursula’s backstory without supplemental material because it is shown in their dialogue and character. But we know NOTHING about Mother Gothel’s story. When they did this, it robbed the audience of true tension in the main conflict.

But it’s important to note that this is only because of bad writing. The male filmmakers completely devote her characterization to her looks and condemen Gothel for aging while having the audacity to deliver a “don’t judge people by their looks” message.

Female Characters and the “Acceptable Female Protagonist”

It is true that female characters who possess ambition and confidence--such as Ursula-- are often placed in villainous roles as opposed to heroic ones. They are in direct contrast with the female main characters. The only exception I can really think of is Sleeping Beauty’s fairy caretakers, but even then they still have a degree of femininity that is considered socially acceptable (aesthetic wise).

This is mostly due to male filmmakers deciding which kind of women they consider “acceptable.” Passive, cute, fiesty but no too fiesty. I think in a twisted way, a lot of male filmmakers think mother characters are supposed to be self sacrificing and pretty because they cannot imagine mothers being anything else. Which is why they almost always end up being dead, have limited speaking roles, or off screen.

An interesting and somewhat disturbing fact about the creation of Rapunzel is that she was created as a means of “capturing” the idealized notion of physical femininity. :

Accessed from Wikipedia with link to interview:

“With Rapunzel I did an enormous amount of drawings and I wanted to keep a sense of asymmetry in her. I read a book about feminine beauty and it said the key to beauty is strangeness in a woman's face. There needs to be something slightly off, some element; it might be her nose, her lip, her tooth, or one eye higher than the other, but something. Even in Rapunzel's teeth, the way she talks, there's something a little bit wonky in the placement of her teeth, and things like that were designed so that she was more real, true and appealing.”

— Keane, on designing Rapunzel and the concept of "feminine beauty"

These “off” qualities of Rapunzel’s character design are all superficial in nature and barely noticeable. I feel like this is more to keep her from venturing into the uncanny valley.

For example, the computer does things perfectly symmetrical. Symmetry is easy, and typically the way you would design a CG character is that you would model half of it and duplicate it.

It's done and it's perfect, but what you've done is you've created create this robot and everyone goes, "Ew, something's weird." With Rapunzel I did an enormous amount of drawings and I wanted to keep a sense of asymmetry in her.

— Keane, on designing Rapunzel and the concept of "feminine beauty"

Now, this is just my interpretation, but it seems like they looked at Rapunzel’s design and went “ew” (like any normal person would) but instead of changing her design to be less uncanny, they seemed to blame the perfect symmatry of the computer rather than it being a design flaw. She’s still uncanny, but when working closely with her character model it becomes slightly less now with superficial adjustments.

Something that only someone looking incredibly closely would be able to know. And still, Glen Keane’s design of Rapunzel is still conventionally pretty and even infantilized. Rapunzel is meant to represent the “ideal” girl. With Mother Gothel and her aging being the direct contrast.

#anti tangled #tangled crit #anti frozen

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